ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS

I drive a lot with my work selling and setting up mobile concrete batching and mixing equipment for Cemco www.cemcoinc.com. I prefer driving as I have my own vehicle, tools and space but, more importantly, I get to see new parts of the country and find interesting subject matter for photographs.

I was driving from Olney, Texas to Erie, Pennsylvania (1450 miles and a 26 hour drive) and noticed these oil storage tanks just South of Archer City on Highway 79. I drive by them a lot but the sun was low and they just stood out. I stopped my truck and made some photographs.Archer City is home to the writer Larry McMurtry, author of “Terms of Endearment”, “Lonesome Dove” and “Brokeback Mountain”. In the smallest of Texas towns he has established a store well-known amongst collectors of fine and rare books called “Booked Up“. Archer City has one stop light at the intersection of Highways 79 and 25. The area is surrounded by large ranches and oil storage tanks are a common sight in this part of Texas and more so further west as you enter the Permian Basin.

The sun was very low and I set my camera for ISO 800, which I almost never use because of the grain/noise. However, I knew I would end up converting the color file to black and white and wanted to see if I could get a similar “grainy” look with the rather high ISO I was using.

I liked the results but it’s the light hitting the metal that works. These tanks can get quite ugly but I just wasn’t seeing them that way when they grabbed my attention that day.

It appears, after reviewing my archives, that I have a large number of roadside images of man-made objects that fit well together. I stop to photograph often and because I’m always driving somewhere I don’t like to hike far from my truck or sit and wait for the light to get just right. I just stop when the light is right.